Left Brain ::
Analysis/Investigation

Murdoch's Minions Helped Steal 2000 Election for Bush

The same Rupert Murdoch Fox team headed by network boss Roger Ailes not only helped fan the flames for the invasion of Iraq. It was necessary first to install the right trusted neoconservative team in the White House and this was accomplished through stealing the election for George W. Bush.

With Florida regarded as the crucial state that would provide the election winner and keys to the White House in 2000, the Republican team had a trump card in place with Bush's younger brother Jeb serving as Florida's governor. By scrubbing numerous minorities legitimately qualified to vote from voters' lists on grounds that they were felons, the Bush clan felt it was in good shape where the Sunshine State was concerned.

As the Bush brothers and father sat in their hotel suite election night, shock waves emerged when it was announced that Florida had been projected into Gore's column. Shortly thereafter a first in presidential election politics occurred. The three Bushes were shown in their suite. An obviously pre-arranged script was followed and it was simple enough that even George W. was able to follow it.

The snippet began with candidate George W. warning that their best evidence, meaning the calculations of brother Jeb, revealed that they would win Florida.

Murdoch Playbook Revealed: Push for War, Fake the Results in Iraq

The spying activities being currently revealed about Rupert Murdoch's operations should be anything but surprising to anyone taking the trouble to analyze what has been happening.

There was the same rush to war in Iraq as there would be to instill George W. Bush in office and keep him there by hook or crook, using such unsubtle means in 2004 as to have commentators that Bill O'Reilly assured us operated objectively count down the number of days to Bush's re-election.

To use the term re-election was a falsehood since it has been fully documented that Bush was never actually elected in 2000.

Murdoch's Fox News operation received a break. It came when New York Times reporter Judith Miller's revealed in print and in a PBS series that Iraq's ruthless dictator Saddam Hussein, who was brought to power with ample CIA assistance, possessed weapons of mass destruction including deadly chemical weapons.

Murdoch's Minions Combined Burglary, Pornography and Patriotism

Few political operatives and quasi journalists would be daring enough to combine burglary, pornography, and patriotism in a political campaign, but then Rupert Murdoch's minions with their ravenous appetites for sensationalism and success at any price play by their own rules.

Australian Murdoch set his sights on Britain in the early seventies. It was not long before his sensation seeking tabloids masquerading as newspapers had played a key role in installing a personal favorite as prime minister with Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party victory in 1979 over a badly divided Labour Party led by James Callaghan.

Thatcher had served longer during a continuous period than any British prime minister since Lord Liverpool's 14-year run commenced in 1812. Storm clouds hovered by 1990, however, after Thatcher's Conservatives trailed Labour consistently over a year and a half period.

Thatcher's scolding nanny manner began rankling many voters. Many saw Thatcher as harsh and heartless, as evidenced by the manner that she used oppressive taxation to wring inflation out of the British economy, drawing even the opposition of Milton Friedman, the American economist she idolized. During this period British homelessness began dramatically increasing.

Did 12 Heads of Cabbage Decide the Casey Anthony Trial?

While the jurors who decided the fate of Casey Anthony were human beings and not heads of cabbage, analyzing their result poses an important question.

Did those jurors decide the case in a manner more expectant of 12 heads of cabbage? One expects no thoughtful deliberation from 12 heads of cabbage. One expects no analysis. This from all available evidence reveals what happened.

The result harkens back to a comment made by the late Dominick Dunne in a television appearance following the not guilty verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial. When an angry Dunne, whose own daughter had been slain followed by a miscarriage of justice, called the jury "stupid" he was criticized by a defense attorney who asserted that Dunne's statement was unduly harsh.

Dunne stood his ground, coolly replying, "The jury was asked to examine the DNA evidence (against Simpson). It refused to do so. That's stupid."

An Erotic Dance and a Tattoo: The Symbols of the Anthony Trial

A picture is worth a thousand words. This expression is clearly recognized by prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick and she put it to constructive use in her dazzling summation in the Casey Anthony murder trial today in Orlando.

This nation riveting trial is being called the first of the social media age. Many more people get a say than was the case in the earlier technological age in which the trial of O.J. Simpson occurred in Los Angeles almost two decades ago.

The speedy advancement of computer technology alongside that of cable television has made photo images and words more acceptable as well as graphically feasible than any other period of world history.

Burdick put images and recorded words to work in her favor today, at the same time taking advantages of opportunities handed to the prosecution by the vitriolic and highly accusatory summation by lead defense counsel Jose Biaz.

Is Casey Anthony a Film Noir Femme Fatale Come to Life?

When the camera zeroed in on Casey Anthony just prior to court resumption last week her manner prompted a comparison.

To watch the coquettish 25-year-old engaged in conversation generated a comparison to her real life demeanor and case history alongside the femmes fatale of film noir. The unfolding pattern of Ms. Anthony and the staggering number of lives she has led in the course of her first quarter century makes her in some ways appear more event-filled, and in many instances far more dramatic, than the life of a busy centenarian.

A snippet from the testimony of former Anthony fiancé Jesse Grund reveals the lock she held on his emotions. Grund revealed being told by Anthony that her older brother Lee had made sexual advances toward her.

Grund explained that he never had anything to do with Lee Anthony after that. At that point in his life, Grund explained, he believed everything that Casey Anthony told him. His explanatory manner left no doubt about the powerful emotional grip Casey held over him.

Should Casey Anthony Testify?

Legal experts and regular viewers of the Casey Anthony trial for the death of her daughter Caylee are weighing in mightily on whether the defendant should testify.

The major reason being advanced as to why Ms. Anthony should take the stand is that she is seen as the logical party to shed light on points raised in lead defense counsel Jose Baez's opening statement. Comments were raised about her having been the recipient of sexual attention by her father.

The assertion was also made by Baez that Caylee Anthony was the victim of an accidental drowning.

There was also the tearful testimony of brother Lee Anthony on Friday which indicated that there might be a dark secret in the family that has not theretofore been learned.

The Casey Anthony Photo that Dominates the Trial

"A picture is worth a thousand words" is a saying that has been around seemingly forever. It has never been more relevant than in the riveting Casey Anthony murder trial in Orlando.

Women are society's child bearers and nurturers. Hence there is a natural sensitivity within most women regarding children and the necessity of caring for their welfare.

Men are not excluded from such sensitivity. Fathers of young girls or those who have been in that position in the past or had friends or relatives who were can readily identify with the Anthony case and its underpinnings.

Nancy Grace, television commentator, mother, and former prosecutor, has been intensely covering the Casey Anthony case from the outset. She recently pinpointed what makes it such an attention riveter. Grace stated that all it takes is one look at Caylee Anthony and she grabs your heart.

Are Customers Better Off From Airline De-Regulation?

Ronald Reagan's famous line delivered at the close of his one and only debate with President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election was "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

While it was Reagan's presidential predecessor Carter who de-regulated the airline industry, this was a page taken from the playbook of the suave former actor with the well-modulated voice. Reagan declared that it was time to "get the government off people's backs" and let it be known that this was a major goal of his administration. Neither friend nor foe would deny that this goal was steadily accomplished.

Carter did no more than get the motor running with airline de-regulation. Reagan, operating in a manner that brought broad smiles to the face of his economic guru Milton Friedman, believed that all we needed to make America the "city on the hill" of his dreams was to remove the dreaded shackles of big government and let the free market take over.

Friedman, a controversial Nobel Prize winner in economics who had been an adviser to the presidential regime of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile, was the economic world's most ebullient advocate of privatization, extending all the way to police and fire protection.

Could Palin Be Convenient Pawn for New World Order?

The prospective scenario for 2012 bears striking similarities to the 1964 presidential race. The nagging question is whether the same force that benefited enormously from the result of the election contested almost a half century ago stands ready to benefit again.

While Sarah Palin is at the moment the key player in what could be a shifty move on behalf of the New World Order in superficially ordaining one result while achieving another, Michele Bachmann could be a key player as well. Bachmann's latest comment made Sunday at a mega church was that God had personally called on her to run against Barack Obama in 2012.

In 1964 the John Birch Society flexed much political muscle within the potent rightist ranks of the Republican Party. Today it is the Tea Party displaying clout within a Republican Party that in 2010 gained control of the House of Representatives. Standing on the top tier of Tea Party popularity among current notable Republicans are Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann.

In 1964 the Vietnam War was gathering momentum. A debate was occurring between President Lyndon Johnson and his conservative Republican rival Senator Barry Goldwater that, in retrospect, resembled the legendary account of Tweedledum and Tweedledee agreeing to do battle.

Osama Uncertainty Akin to JFK, 9/11

Peter Dale Scott, who has written so much about what is presented as government fact and the realities that lie hidden often well beneath the surface, coined the term Deep Politics to encompass this realm.

The powers that be that reside in the highest echelons of government have sought to squelch any such inquiry as falling under the heading of conspiracy theory. To be a conspiracy theorist is to live in a wild world devoid of reality.

Initially using the conspiracy theory pejorative worked superbly as a means of denouncing anyone who dared suggest that the official theory of the John F. Kennedy assassination that a troubled former Marine loner holding presumably strong Marxist leanings was responsible for the assassination of a popular American president.

Initially any questioning of official dogma was considered crackpot theorizing by a substantial majority of Americans. Eventually as the white heat of analysis was put to the lone gunman theory more Americans, ultimately encompassing a majority, doubted an official theory that was embraced in the Warren Commission Report, the government's investigative conclusion of what occurred.

The Asians Never Attacked America!

How nerve wracking it was for the right during the Vietnam War era. There was the strong conviction that if the forces of Ho Chi Minh were not repulsed then it was only a question of time before those forces invaded and occupied the United States through relying on sheer statistical superiority.

Lyndon B. Johnson was one of the craftiest legislative leaders in American history. His ability to shrewdly dicker and make a minimum wage law or Medicare was a thing of great natural beauty.

The inherent Johnson tragedy lay in the fact that when he assumed the presidency he began making decisions in the realm of war and peace for which he was profoundly ill suited. The Gulf of Tonkin was rigged to display North Vietnamese animus toward the U.S. that did not exist in reality.

An astute French historian and political scientist named Jean Lacouture told all that were willing to read and listen that the Vietnamese independent movement was strongly embraced by Ho Chi Minh's father. Ho Chi Minh told any Americans willing to read or listen that his sturdy admiration for George Washington stemmed from that great general's fight for independence from British rule whereas he and other Vietnamese wished to end foreign dominance as well.

The Republican Right's California Racism

Marilyn Davenport's recent journey into the ugly world of racism exposed the under belly of a county, party and state with a tragic history of ugly racist conduct.

An important strategic aspect of the 74-year-old Orange County Republican Central Committee member's conduct relates to her angry counter punch embodying a familiar "the best defense is a good offense" strategy.

Rather than permit the onus to reside on a tasteless act depicting President Barack Obama as a descendant of chimpanzees, Davenport denounced the revelation of her e-mail as "cowardly".

Even the "apology" of sorts that Davenport delivered was conditional as well as decidedly lukewarm. Davenport explained that the e-mail was sent to a selective few people she knew who could presumably "understand" her intent.

Will Obama Score Landslide by Exploiting Tea Party?

Presidential political strategists find that the road to victory often stems from establishing tactics based on successful past paradigm results.

When the Tea Party was given credit for helping Republicans score dramatic gains in the 2010 midterm elections that included winning control of the House of Representatives, many Washington watchers recognized that the way the victory was achieved was reminiscent of what happened in 1994 in the middle of President Bill Clinton's first term.

The shattering victory of the Republicans caused Clinton to initially experience crushing depression according to many on the D.C. presidential watch. Meanwhile Republicans chortled at the prospect of winning the presidency in 1996.

There were many independent observers not influenced by GOP euphoria who also believed that the tide was running so strong that it would be difficult for Clinton and the Democrats to surmount it.

Sidney Lumet, Master Director, RIP

Much is being written about the death on Saturday of master director Sidney Lumet at 86 so the focus here will be on the manner in which he exquisitely interacted with master actors and developed critical subject matter.

Lumet stated that, while it was essential to entertain audiences in film, his goal was to supply something more. He did this by tackling some of the most complex and controversial material through showing human beings confronted at critical crossroads.

Henry Fonda was an actor who stood for bedrock truth in the manner of James Stewart and Gary Cooper, but often with a measure of complexity. It was a master stroke to cast Fonda in the lead of Lumet's first film, "12 Angry Men", a gripping look at the controversial subject of capital punishment humanized through the experiences of New York City jurors in a case of a young man being tried for murdering his father.

A younger Fonda had received critical praise for playing an outsider thrown into a rush to judgment by townsfolk to apply lynch law justice to a group of strangers headed by Dana Andrews in "The Ox-Bow Incident", released in 1943.